Like Oil and Water
by I Am The Silver Lining
Summary: Scientist and Medics: cybertron's finest when left to their respective fields. But put them together and they are bound to stir up a fuss seeing who is better. Scientist Dr Crosscut and medic Dr Viper are no exception to this. Even as a war breaks out, these two will argue like an old married couple till the bitter end. (OCxOC story, crack pairing and hilarity)
1. Chapter 1: The other Doctor

**Chapter one - The other doctor**

Parties were worse than guarding a whole shift of angry miners. As far as he had left that life behind, Crosscut could not help to think back to it almost wistfully now. At least miners dealt the insults openly. He had maybe talked to three mechas while he was here and it had taken him half a joor to realize they had called him a savage, a mannerless commoner and a dimwitted moron respectively afterwards. He really wasn't sure what he was even supposed to be doing here, but senator Alpha Trion had insisted that he'd attend. So far, he felt more like some sort of circus attraction with the way most of the other guests avoided him.

And yet he had to be here if he wanted to take his medical career seriously, all the important bots where here after all and without having important friends to cover your back and to pay your checks one couldn't even dream about affording a proper education and an own clinic in the future. That was why Crosscut would suffer all the tortures of socializing with a smile on his face, a fake one was still better than none.

There was that one mech in particular that he needed to make a good impression on. The well-known philanthropist called Monsieur Ford who had sponsored on several big medical projects in the past and of whom Alpha Trion had told him. If he managed to make a good impression… but then he would have to get past the crowd surrounding the mech first. Apparently he wasn't the only one who wanted to apply for funds tonight.

He sighed and took a sip of his energon drink, some more liquid courage would be needed if he was going to do that. When he finally made his mind and walked toward the crowd the first thing he noticed was...

"...it would be a pleasure to have you visit my clinic, Monsieur Ford," a gentle voice assured and as Crosscut took another step forward he could already see to whom it belonged to.

The mech who was talking must have been the strangest guest at this party, even stranger than the big, blue lobsteroid himself - which really wasn't easy to beat. The gaudy red paintjob, the long armored tail and the massive collar around his neck and helm, it was all giving this bot a cybercobra-like look and with a look like that he could probably pose as a material for a sparkling's nightmares.

But on the bright side, where the reptilian mech stood, the crowd had visibly thinned so grasping his chance Crosscut wedged himself carefully into the gap until he stood directly next to the red mech.

"Oh, a new faceplate. Is this fellow an acquaintance of yours doctor Viper?"

"No Sir," the one called Viper said, looking at Crosscut with cautioned interest, "a new face to me as well."

As polite as it sounded, Crosscut could sense a distrust in the other mech's voice. No wonder, meeting another triple changer at a fancy party like this one was a rather strange coincidence after all.

"My name is Crosscut, I am one of Senator Alpha Trion's proteges." He managed to introduce himself and hoped he hadn't done too bad a job of it, showing good manners was more complicated than he had anticipated. Should he have waited till someone else introduced him? But then he didn't actually know any of the mecha in this crowd. "The senator sends his greeting. He still hopes to sway your favours towards sponsoring our science project, for the conservation of our cultural heritage."

oOo

Viper hid his frown at the mention of sponsorships, keeping a professional look of slight interest on his faceplates. He wanted to say something less than professional to the new mech, but at the same time he didn't want to sound bad in front of the sponsors. He was trying to get some backing for his clinic, which was located in the lower parts of Iacon, the slums. His clinic was on it's last legs and in desperate need of financial assistance. Most of his patients were far too poor to pay Viper enough to keep his clinic going, but he never turned an in need bot from his doorstep.

He steeled himself and said with a forced air of politeness: "I was just speaking of sponsorship with these fine bots" he said, laying on compliments in hopes to sway them back to him. "I operate a clinic in lower Iacon that provides medical assistance for those less fortunate, bots in desperate need of help. It's my hope to provide this help. Not only will we have a well functioning lower caste, who are no longer hindered by their unattended injuries, they will also help contribute further to our economy by boosting manufacturing and product output of your businesses." he gestured to the listening aristocrats, selling his idea.

The blue mech listened to all this as well, with no attempt to interrupt but when Viper was done talking, Crosscut decided it was his turn to make a short speech.

"I happened to be a medic myself so I have to agree with Doctor Viper. The development of medical equipment and methods is a very important thing in those turbulent times we live it. However, no improvement can be achieved with just investing in the equipment itself without researching new ways of providing the medical help. That is why I'd say the medical science should come first. It is us - scientists who bring solutions to the unsolvable problems of the society by developing better methods of helping those in need and making it all faster, cheaper and more effective for regular medics."

"It looks like we have two promising, young medics here. How interesting!" One of the aristobots beamed.

Monsieur Ford seemed quite impressed, Viper not so much.

"Indeed, very interesting…" The red reptilian narrowed his optics. "And you were saying that where exactly you were studying, doctor Crosscut? I don't recall seeing you at Iacon's Medical Academy."

"I am currently absolving the advanced courses in cpu and processor chirurgy at the academy. While I have some vorns of experience in rendering more broadly based medical assistance, I always strive to expand my knowledge. Medicine is not a static science after all, else we would still treat everything with duct tape."

Viper fought back the urge to shot the other one a death glare. Instead he smiled weakly.

"Of course, of course. But nothing helps you to learn new things more than working with actual patients."

Who in seven pits did the blue smart-aft think he was? To show off like that in front of the newly met bots, acting like some know-it-all primadonna! Did he have no shame? It took Viper several decivorns to get an invitation to a party like this one, where all the gold credit card club members would be and another few joors to master his courage to start the conversation with any of his potential sponsors. And now, when he thought all was going well, this damned lobsteroid showed up out of nowhere and stole Monsieur Ford's attention. Something had to be done, and it had to be done quick if Viper didn't want to lose his chance.

Then one of the other mechs, who had watched the whole discussion between the two medics with quiet amusement, spoke up: "I just wish those patients of yours were a bit more grateful doctor Viper. It seems that no orn is passing, where there aren't news of thefts in medical facilities in the slums, committed by addicts or reports of some brutes trying to offline each other on the open streets. Maybe if they learn that repairs are not for free they also learn to curb those violent tendencies for once."

Viper felt his faceplate going slack. This was a catastrophe, and was it really possible that any educated mecha could be that ignorant and naive?

"Well," he started "If mechs were properly provided for with medical services and unencumbered with medical fees, perhaps they wouldn't resort to criminal acts to make ends meet."

"Or perhaps it is just their nature. With those uneducated lowlifes you never know what you're going to get," the aristocratic mech replied with a fake sadness.

Viper's expression tightened and his polite half-smile looked strained at the mech's stereotypical assumption of the lower castes. It really ground on Viper's gears when higher-ups assumed everyone below them on the social status was a lesser bot because of it.

Unfortunately this one aristocrat wasn't the only one with such opinion.

"You are absolutely right, Honda-san," the elegant, middle-aged ladybot agreed and walked toward said mech, passing Viper by as if he didn't exist.

He knew that femme, he had seen her at every charity party and every important event he had attended before. They called her Miss Mercedes, she was the head of the big, industrial construction and erection company and she tended to treat bots as her personal servants. The way she ignored him completely, made Viper's energon boil in his cables. What was even worse, she took some interest in the other medic and now Monsieur Ford, Honda-san, Crosscut and her were standing there, talking, not paying attention to Viper anymore.

That was when he realized that the all hope was lost.

"Will you excuse me for a moment," he said weakly, wanting nothing more than to leave this place before anybot could see his anger and disappointment, "there is someone I need to talk to. It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Mercedes, Monsieur Ford, Honda-san, doctor."

All of them noded him goodbye repeating "doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor,". Viper could swear that in Crosscut's mouth those words sounded like a hidden insult, like the unsaid "I am a better doctor than you, better give up already." Doing his best to keep his calm, Viper looked the blue mech in the optics. They shared only a moment of the eye contact but it was enough for Viper to know that this mech was the one he would hate from now on to the end of his functioning.

(AN: This is a story made by Me and Two others! 3 authors, one glorious story XD This started as a crack fic in our heads, now lookie here!

Crosscut belongs to the others: WorstCaseComics and Temarcia

Viper belongs to me! Silver :D

Please review~ we love them glorious reviews (probably going to reply to them at the end of the chapters X3 )

Till all are one!)


	2. Chapter 2: Two of a Kind

**Chapter two - Two of a kind**

Crosscut had been out on a break when it happened. The first one in three orns - his team had basically kicked him out of the laboratory with the orders to get himself some energon and recharge finally. Thanks to the donation the project was so close to completion, the mecha frames with their specialized cpus almost ready to be taken before the Allspark. Alpha Trion had fought hard to get an activation date for all of them since the military seemed to use it constantly now to enspark whole bataillons to subdue the uprising rebellion. So Crosscut's creations had to be ready on time as the onlining couldn't be postponed. Still his colleagues had argued, he couldn't afford to make any mistakes, and a medic as tired as he currently was, was an accident waiting to happen.

That was quite an irony in hindsight, as he hadn't even managed to reach the little energon cafe where he had planned to refuel, before the emergency call had come in. And scientist now or not, Crosscut was still a medic with first responder coding. He had locked on his new destination immediately and strained his rotor altmode to the limit to arrive on the scene within a breem.

It had looked deceptively harmless. A small trail of smoke came from the opening of a highway tunnel. Crosscut was not fooled - there was nothing more dangerous than an open fire in a narrow mineshaft, tunnel or cavern, he knew from experience. And there were mechas down there, his specialized sensors could hear the pained screams, the fear filled cries for help and the static of commcalls that couldn't quite reach to the surface.

Tired, underenergized and aware of the danger, Crosscut hadn't hesitated to go in and follow the call. It just was what he did.

Hadn't he been so tired, Crosscut would have realized the support strut would break any moment, hadn't he been so underenergized, he may have dodged the falling rubble in time. Now he was pinned, a metal bar impaling his chassis like he was some sort of cyberfly in a he could feel the heat from the raging fire coming closer. Theoretically highway tunnels were supposed to have a sprinkler system and escape tunnels every half mechanomile, not that the latter would be of any use to him now, but the sprinklers had failed and there had been just blank walls behind some of the so called emergency exits. Obviously someone had saved some money in construction and probably bribed some inspectors.

He knew he should feel angry or even terrified by now, but all Crosscut could think about was that he wouldn't get the chance to see his creations onlining. Such a waste, and just when it was so close to the end of the project, after all those troubles with winning the sponsors over and working till dropping almost every orn. Life had never been fair to him, from the start he had had a hard time to make things work and just when it seemed the dog days were over his life was going to end because of the one, wrong choice he had made.

With that bitter thought on his mind, Crosscut felt the weakness slowly taking over his frame. Every drop of the processed energon he lost brought him closer to the unavoidable end. The darkness was closing in on him.

oOo

Viper was NOT having a good orn. Not only was his clinic almost bone dry of supplies, but he had an entire crowd come in early in the cycle and cramp his already crowded clinic. Bots with missing arms from accidents pasts, screaming sparklings and dirt cover creators looking like they were on their last leg of energy. Not that he blamed or judged them, energon was hard to come by in the Iconian slums.

He was still more than a little aggravated about what had happened at the galla a stellar cycle previous. That blue crab, Crossnut? CrossShut? He didn't care, all he cared about was the mech came in and swooped his sponsors away without an ounce of grace in his systems. And Viper had been so close to sealing the deal with those aristocratic businessbots.

Viper grumbled, the hood connected to the back of his helm flaring out in his irritation. He fixed what he could with what he had, angry he couldn't do more for the bots in his lobby.

He was in the middle of fixing a few bad wires in a bot's arm when an enforcer ran into the room.

"Doctor Viper, you are needed immediately! There has been an terrible accident near Iacon's higher levels. A cave in at one of the subway levels" the enforcer said to the surprised medic.

Viper's face set into a stern, professional look. He looked at the mech at the table that he had been working on.

"Please return tomorrow, I have an emergency to attend to" he said, slithering from the room before the mech could say anything.

The enforcer led him to the accident. Smoke was rising from holes in the ground, both purposely placed holes and where the roof caved in. Viper ran a scanner around the area, taking note that most of signals were underground, as to be expected.

He carefully climbed into the nearest hole, his optics casting a dim blue light into the darkness. Then he moved down the wrecked corridor as best he could, his tail giving him an advantage since he was able to move swiftly without touching unstable pieces and fit through holes others just couldn't.

He found his first patient, an orange bot that looked like a construction worker. More than likely one of the bots operating in this tunnel. Well, he didn't do his damn job, now did he? Viper thought with a huff. But be that as it may, he still fixed up any major injuries the mech had and commed a ground bridge from a medical center nearby to come and get the mech.

This was what happened for the next several breems, Viper found a mech, fixed any serious injuries that needed immediate assistance, then flung their afts through the groundbridge and out of his servos. More than a few injured mechs screamed at the sight of him, thinking he was some sort of entity coming to drag their sparks down to the pit. He had rolled his optics at these mechs and fixed them, shoving them through the green glowing portals with a little more force than necessary. To his surprise a few of them looked as if they had been stabilized already by quick patches.

It wasn't until he reached a more dangerously unstable part of the cave filled with black, suffocating smoke in that his orn when from bad to worse when a familiar blue crustacean came into view.

"Are you fragging kidding me?" he hissed, several curses following and he moved over to the damaged medic. He assessed the mech's damage: a support beam though the chassis, just inches from his sparkchamber, several lacerations on his arms and legs, most likely from falling debris. The blue mech was leaking heavily and enough energon coated the floor, causing Viper to be more than a tad concerned for him.

To make his orn complete, flames were already licking through the rubble and about to ignite all the lobsteroid's spilled energon. That too meant he was the last one - whoever had still been trapped beyond this point was just an empty, charred hull by now.

He pulled out a small saw from his emergency medical aid kit and began to get the support beam removed from the mech's chassis. It took several breems, and many curses, before Viper was able to remove the beam without causing further damage.

But, as it seemed, luck wasn't in his favor this orn, and the support beam that had been embedded in his rival's chassis had also been holding up what was left of the ceiling.

Viper would later deny all claims that he screamed like a crazy bot while hauling aft out of the caving in cavern, an unconscious and bleeding crab mech thrown over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

But he couldn't deny the cursing he had done when he had finally gotten out of the cave in. One of the falling rocks had landed on the very tip of his tail, and that was a very sensitive area. It felt like Unicron had just dug himself from the pit to bite Viper in the rear.

He ignored his pain for now (but he was sure going to grump about it later), to focus on the injured crabformer. Viper moved, his tail curled behind himself like a spring so he could lean down better. His servos flew over the mech's wrecked chassis with a practiced ease that came from vorns of training and experience.

Training, he thought grumpily, that the mech beneath him clearly did not have if those simple patches were the best he could do. Yet he was still able to swoop in and steal his funding. And Viper highly doubted that he'd get over that humiliation anytime in the foreseeable (and unforeseeable) future. So he just steeled himself to fix the other mech, welding and patching broken energon lines, replacing vital wiring until he was certain his patient was no longer in the red zone.

Viper allowed himself a breath after he stabilized the lobster. Tired and still very VERY grumpy, he commed the clinic and picked up the mech into his arms to carry him in himself. He needed to visit that clinic anyhow to check in on the bots he had stabilized on the field.

He was greeted with chaos.

Medical staff pushed injured bots on gurneys all over, creating traffic jams in the corridors. There was a lot of yelling and injured bots laying everywhere, waiting to be tended to.

Viper was able to snag a bot, a young femme nurse, out of the chaos.

"What is all this? This is far more bots than the cave in at sector 316 could have caused" he questioned, having to almost shout to be heard.

"That's because there was also cave ins at secors 324, 337, 340 and half of the north side slums," the nurse replied looking frazzled. "the whole system collapsed at once, all medical clinics are strained beyond capacity." She glanced at the mech in Viper's arms. "I'm sorry, but you'll have to take your friend elsewhere for medical assistance, we simply have too many here." With that she briskly walked away to grab another patient that was in the main lobby.

Viper cringed when she said "friend", inwardly cursing and holding back from yelling just how much this mech WAS NOT his friend.

Like pit he was taking care of this mech. So Viper check in with the next clinic… and the next… and the next… all were beyond capacity and just couldn't take in another mech at the moment, much to the ire of one scorned medic.

He grumbled to himself and turned to leave the last medical facility (a fancy one in uppermost Iacon), resigning himself for the extremely unpleasant task of healing the blue crab mech in his arms. As he left, Viper snagged some much needed medical supplies. He knew he didn't have the right things to fix his new patient properly, and he'd be damned to let the mech wake up with anything less than perfect repairs. No need to add to his humiliation by giving this mech some verbal ammo against him.

So Viper took him back to his shabby, underfunded clinic. He slithered through the doors and past the empty receptionist desk. The bot that used to help him had quit after Viper had told him about the fund shortage, which would have docked the mech's paycheck considerably. Not that he blamed him. Viper set the crab mech down on one of his clean berths and began to tend to his wounds, replacing the quick fixes with more permanent ones. He stitched up the large gashes with strips of metal that he welded on neatly.

While he waited for the welds to cool, Viper refueled him. His energy levels were dangerously low, so he also had to install an energon drip into his arm. He hung the IV bag on a hook next to the berth. Then came the arduous task of cleaning the blue medic's vent-filters where the smoke had agglomerated into a tar like goo, before he could even think about starting with the surgery near the sparkchamber. Viper was done with all the major repairs within the orn. Only then he found finally the time to clear his own vent-filters.

oOo

The lobsteroid didn't wake the next orn. He didn't wake the orn that followed either. He was just lying there silently, like a permanently offlined mecha, if it wasn't for his still vibrant blue color-nanites, one would have thought just that.

During the last orns the flow of new and old patients had never stopped. With the clinics in upper Iacon full with the victims of the accident - or rather terrorist attack, as it had turned out the Decepticon movement claimed to have placed detonation devices in the tunnels to 'make the corrupt system collapse into itself', there had been a few new faceplates around. Those new patients that hadn't turned around running screaming when seeing Viper, had the audacity to complain about the limited facilities in his clinic. Viper felt no remorse in adding a not so little 'complaining fee' to their bills. Maybe this would allow him to at least pay the next groon's rent.

He listened absentmindedly to another news report about the incident while he cleaned his surgery-tools. This time it was about the botch jobs the tunnel-construction company was accused of as investigations had revealed a horrendous state of the security measurements. On the screen Miss Mercedes was shouting "No comment!" all over at the mob of reporters that was crowding her demanding statements. It was kind of ironical that indirectly in the end she had sent him a few customers with credits, which might keep the clinic going for another while.

Viper sighed, whom was he kidding? This was no long term solution. He had already taken to suggesting joining the army to a few of his more regular visitors. The Autobots were currently recruiting anyone who could hold a blaster and it meant at least daily energon rations and a roof over the helm at night. And medical service - the Autobots were desperately looking for medics.

"My patients!" A sudden loud shout and a commotion drew him from his musings.

Viper turned around just to see the crab mech finally awaken and trying to pull himself up on his elbows. Of course the lobsteroid knew nothing about what had happened while he was out but that sudden panic was still kind of amusing.

"What patients?" The snake mech moved closer to the hospital bed where the other was resting. "You mean those poor bots you had patched up so lazily? You don't have to worry, I fixed them properly and sent them to another clinic after you had got yourself trapped."

The blue mech froze at the sound of Viper voice as if that was the last thing he had expected.

"You?" He uttered and Viper could see his optics getting wider in a sheer surprise. "What are YOU doing here?"

"In case you didn't notice, that HERE is my clinic. I work here," He explained. "And by 'work' I mean I help injured mechas, and save their sparks sometimes." The "unlike you" almost escaped Viper's lip-plates there.

"Then what am I doing here?" Crosscut inquired apparently not too fond of the place. He cast a quick glance around before commenting: "You really weren't kidding when you tried to get that funding, weren't you?"

"You are here," Viper began, turning around and placing down the tool that he had in his servo on his work table, "because I found you in those collapsed tunnels and got you out. I brought you here because every other clinic was full, and despite some bot's opinions of me, I'm not sparkless enough to leave a damaged mech on the streets," then muttered "no matter my opinion of them" he then turned to Crosscut. "And why the frag would I joke about needing funding? I'm certainly not fond of groveling to those pompous, arrogant, uneducated businessnots. So, why would I feel the need to beg them for credits unless it was absolutely necessary?" his tone all throughout his explanation was low and angry, and his hood had fanned out in his defense to make him seem larger.

"I thought you were trying to get one of those fancy turbo-scalpelysers that are all the rage right now… not that it was about your electricity bill." He gestured vaguely at the dim emergency lighting. "One should think those buisenessnots could afford to finance two projects with all the money they are hiding from the tax." Then as if he suddenly remembered something urgent, the lobsteroid almost shot off the medberth: "Oh Primus below! How long was I out? This is a calamity, I need to make a call!"

"And where do you think you're going?" Viper stopped the mech before he could jump off the bed and pull the pvc out of his cables. "You're after a serious surgery, stuffed with painkillers, there's no way I'm letting you out of your bed for at least next 12 joors."

"I feel fine," the lobsteroid protested. "Just let me contact my colleagues, our project was about to get the finalization and…"

"You feel 'fine' only because I wasted half of my morph-En supplies on you. If not for it, you wouldn't even be able to talk!" The red-framed madic snapped. Arguing with the patient was the last thing he felt like doing right now. Not like it hadn't happened before, once in awhile he had to deal with disobedient or even aggressive mechas but this particular one seemed to be getting on his nerves a lot faster than others.

Crosscut eyed him carefully, a frow on his faceplate.

"Can I see my medical documentation? What else were you giving me while I was unconscious?"

Viper knew exactly where it was going. He would not allow the stubborn crab to act as if he was the boss in here.

"Listen now, Crosscut. You're at my clinic which means I am your medic and you're my patient. So do yourself a favour and start behaving like one. No self-repairing, no smart-aft comments, and no breaking the clinic's rules, is that clear?" Viper gave the mech a stern look he reserved for only his most pesky patients, meant to strike fear into them. He flashed Crosscut his pointed teeth, just to get the message across.

Not intimidated in the least the blue mech commented drily: "If you think that is able to scare me, I have to inform you that I had met Doctor Ratchet."

Viper had nothing more to add at that point. He remembered Doctor Ratchet's classes - and they used to be Pit!

"My condolences," he huffed.

 **(AN: another chapter :D**

 **This is a 3 author story of Me (silver), Tem and Worst :D They own Crosscut and I own Viper and none of us own Transformers (one dayyy~)**

 **Anyway, we'd love the reviews :D so please do!**

 **Temarcia:** **sammmee~ they are just so adorable when they are grumpy q.q**


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